This application is a request for funding of the second Gordon Research Conference on A "Signaling by Adhesion Receptors" to be held July 14-19, 2002 at Connecticut College, New London, CT. This meeting was founded because signaling by adhesion receptors had not received sufficient attention within the necessarily broader formats of meetings on cell adhesion or signaling. Additionally, most cells in vitro use multiple adhesion receptors simultaneously, yet the existing meetings on adhesion systems typically focus on one receptor in isolation. Indeed, this conference has rapidly become a unique forum for bringing together signaling laboratories working on different adhesion receptors. The scientific value of cross-fertilizing these related fields became apparent when the inaugural meeting readily attracted international leaders in adhesion receptor signaling, was heavily oversubscribed, and received an extremely positive rating by the participants. While the 2002 A "Signaling by Adhesion Receptors" meeting described here continues to highlight the interplay between signaling by distinct adhesion receptors, it also emphasizes the major roles that Rho family GTPases and the cytoskeleton play as effectors in adhesion receptor signaling. The speakers include the most active groups in the ECM/integrin, cadherin/catenin and Rho GTPase fields. Several short talks and posters will complement the principal lectures and are intended to draw attention to the work of young investigators. As with the last meeting, I anticipate that the 2002 Gordon Conference on Signaling by Adhesion Receptors will be attended by a diverse array of professionals: basic scientists, physician-scientists, researchers in industry, and editors from leading cell and molecular biology journals. There is a strong cancer relevance to the program, but important new findings relevant to development, differentiation, vascular biology, neurobiology, and aging will also be presented.